When looking at buying an original M1A1 you have to be careful. Please don't rush in, this happened to a friend of mine and without doing some home work it can be very costly.

Firstly and most importantly - ALL M1A1 Carbines are made by Inland Manufacturing Division of General Motors and are marked with 'INLAND'. There are no other manufactures who made the M1A1, no matter who tries to convince you otherwise.

There were two production runs of around 70,00 each. The first started late in 1942 until October 1943 and had all the typical identifiers of early wartime carbines: Type 1 barrel bands (no bayonet lug), high wood and flip sights.

The second production run started in April 1944 and finished at the end of the year. This second run has typical later war carbine features like the adjustable sights, low wood and some even had the type 3 barrel bands at the very end of the production run.

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INLAND made both M1 and M1A1, there is no way to tell what numbered gun went into what stock, which means that just because an original deactivated INLAND-marked carbine is in a folding stock, it's no guarantee that it's an original M1A1. It just points you along the right track...

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The first production run of the M1A1 Carbine seems to all have 6-digit serial numbers. However, ones that have been seen and recorded range from examples in the:

100,000s  barrels dated Dec 1942
200,000s         "       "       March 1943

300,000s         "       "          "       "       

400,000s          "       "       June 1943

500,000s          "       "       July 1943

800,000s         "       "       October 1943

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The second production run

5,100,000s  barrels dated March 1944

5,200,000s         "       "          "       "         and May 1944   

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So, things to check. If you get any NO's to these questions then you must ask yourself if this is genuine or not.

Is it made by INLAND?

Does the serial number fit with the numbers shown above?

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If so then now the only thing to check is the M1A1 stock.

All M1A1 stocks are made of Walnut, anything else is wrong. Walnut has lovely grain patterns. If you can't tell one wood from another, get Googling "how to know if wood is walnut".

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All the metal on the stock should be parkerized and not blued. Again, if you don't know the difference, get Googling!

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The pistol grip will always be marked with proof mark, showing the gun has been test fired. This happens to all guns. It is found on the side of the pistol grip or very back centre stock.

The bottom of the pistol grip will have an 'OI' stamp for Overton Inland which was the only manufacturer of this stock. Also, there should be a crossed cannon Ordnance Mark; sometimes these marks can both be a little hard to spot, so look closely, before dismissing.

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The butt stock rear plate should be cast pieces that all contain the same part number 'B257614' followed by something that looks like one of the playing pieces from Trivial Pursuit that you put the bits of 'cheese' into. After that 'logo' is the number of the cast which seems to range between 3 to 12.

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The leather piece on the stock is very commonly missing, but if present it should be of a nice high-quality leather and always very, very dark brown in colour. The rivets that hold this in place are dull, never shiny and unmarked*. (* with the exception of a few rebuilds where brake rivets were used, and these can be marked 7/4.

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If you've gotten this far with no problems and everything has checked out, then there is one last thing to check. Carefully take the Carbine out the stock and inside the barrel channel it will be stamped 'IO'. If this stamp is also present, then you either have a very impressively worked fake, or it's an original.